In this Facebook age of social networking websites and countless chatrooms and forums, one question hangs on the lips of every parent – what are our children doing on the computer, and who are they talking to?
It was that question, that same concern, which led
‘What started off as nothing more than a simple question from my wife – “What’s our daughter doing on her computer?” – resulted in seven months’ development and a software solution to a problem that most parents are going to have to face at some point,’ explained Paul, who was born and educated in Peel.
‘I didn’t know what our daughter was using her computer for. She was 10 at the time and had her own laptop in her bedroom. Although she had access to the family PC downstairs, she was getting to that age where she liked her own room far more than hanging downstairs with the “olds”!
‘But she was using a tool that would allow her to communicate with anybody in the world, and it didn’t seem right that I had no idea who she might be talking to. The switch had been flicked and I was curious – and nervous – about what she might be up to. I think if she had been a little younger she would have been happy to only use the computer when either my wife or I was with her. But all her friends were using their computers alone and so she wanted to.’
Paul researched the child monitoring program options, but wasn’t happy with what he found.
‘They all had at least two flaws – expensive and overly complex,’ said the 29-year-old self-employed software developer. ‘I wasn’t interested in our daughter’s passwords, what keys she’d been typing or restricting the websites and programs she was using, as she only wanted to use the social networking websites and instant chat, which presented the biggest danger as far as we were concerned. I didn’t want to block anything, just the ability to have simple screen shots of what she was looking at emailed to me.
‘To get this, I needed to buy all these extra features and install overly complex programs that wanted to take over my computer. So I decided to write my own software.
‘I had a very clear idea of what I wanted the program to do – and whilst running some tests on the screen-grab ability of the software, I had the misfortune of seeing some of the Bebo profiles that she had been browsing.
‘I have nothing against social networking. I’ve been using the internet since 1993 and have grown up with technology, but what I saw on the profiles of those 11 and 12-year-old girls gave me a massive wake-up call. There were comments such as “How sexy do you think I am?” and “What would you like to do to me?” – I was fairly sure that the parents of SuperHotAndSexy96XX had no idea what their daughter was up to online.’
When the program was completed, Paul installed it on his daughter’s laptop and the family PC and discussed it at length with her.
He said: ‘She completely accepted ICU, understood that I was only looking out for her, that I wasn’t interested in what she was discussing with her friends and that I wouldn’t ever mention what she was doing unless it was something that was worrying me. I made it a rule to delete the email of her online activity once I’ve checked it over.’
Paul then turned his attention to making the software easier to use for those parents who aren’t computer literate, reducing the number of options, making everything as intuitive as possible and creating a short demonstration video.
‘The most important thing is that it’s a solution to a problem that I’m happy to use,’ he said. ‘Our daughter is 12 now, using MSN Messenger to chat to her friends for hours at a time and she even has a webcam. Without having ICU, there is no way I’d be happy with this but now it’s not a problem because I know it’s easy for me to look out for her.’
The software is available to buy online at www.icu-software.co.uk. However, Paul has just teamed up with a company called TrialPay, which allows him to offer ICU free to parents.
‘This is a giant leap forward in child monitoring, as at last the ICU solution is totally affordable to all parents, no matter where they live,’ Paul explained. ‘ICU is now the first commercial-quality child monitoring program available for free download.
‘There is more detail on how TrialPay works on the ICU website, but in summary it allows us to offer our software for free, if customers accept an offer from one of a huge number of big name partners, a large percentage of which are also free. Of course, as you’d expect, all the offers are totally reversible. Having used TrialPay in the past to get other products for free, we’re sure it is the best way forward for ICU.’
